


Linen Trousers and Moleskin Bags

by clio_jlh



Category: Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Waters
Genre: Crossdressing, F/F, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 16:15:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/599709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clio_jlh/pseuds/clio_jlh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes some time for Florence to get used to seeing Nancy in trousers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Linen Trousers and Moleskin Bags

**Author's Note:**

  * For [likeaduck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeaduck/gifts).



> Thank you so much to my anonymous beta who was awesome as always! Thanks also to likeaduck for such a great prompt and the opportunity to write for such an amazing book!

The first time Florence saw Nancy she was in linen trousers.

Flo noticed that she was being watched by someone in a room across the street. Florence was no stranger to girls in trousers, but Nancy didn't have that affect, or effect for that matter. She was trying to look like a man, rather than being mannish, and with the deep voice Florence mistook her for a gent.

The second time Florence saw Nancy, she was in feminine garb. She didn't respond to flirting, yet was insistent on their spending time together. She didn't seem to understand the little codes, the tells, the ways their sort communicated with one another in public. Which made Florence want to laugh—this girl who seemed all self-assurance and confidence didn't know what she was doing at all. Being around the crowd at a suffragist lecture would likely cure her of that. 

Only Nancy never turned up.

* * *

The next time Flo saw Nancy in trousers, at least she knew who she was seeing, even if it was, as the saying goes, through a glass darkly. Though that glass was growing brighter all the time thanks to the efforts of Nancy, who was standing on the other side of the window cleaning it. 

Florence had never been much for housework, past the rudimentary needs of survival in the city: feeding her small family and keeping their home free from filth. But why should she have a shiny step to impress the neighbors? She would much rather use that time and energy to help them in their hour of need. Lilian would have called such concerns bourgeois, best left for the middle class ladies who came to talks on the Woman Question while their servants, women who were paid but a pittance, made sure they could keep up appearances.

But this was something Nancy could do, bring their home up to that standard, and it pleased her to be useful just as much as it pleased anyone else. Ralph said it was generous, in a way, to allow Nancy to do all this unnecessary cleaning, and if Ralph had been any other man Flo would have suspected he was merely trying to convince her so he could have a conventional home. But Ralph had never minded about any of that before, and he was too sincere a fellow to come up with such tricks. 

Watching Nancy at work, now, Florence could see what Ralph had meant. The large window that looked out from the kitchen to the back garden was divided into panes, which Nancy had covered in polish. At first Florence didn't want to interrupt Nancy's work; she'd come home early, after all, and it seemed unfair to throw Nancy from her rhythm. Watching her slowly and thoroughly remove the polish from each pane was like seeing a puzzle come to life—first boots, new and shiny black; then, surprisingly, legs clad in moleskin trousers. They were full at her calf, but clung to her thighs, which had grown more muscular with good food and hard work in the months since she'd arrived at Quilter Street, and Florence found herself transfixed. Another row of panes revealed Nancy's slender hips and trim waist, and the white shirt tucked into her trousers. Nancy's hips shifted from side to side as she worked, almost as if she were dancing, and Florence's breath became unsteady, watching the fabric tighten around her frame and then loosen again as she moved. Next was her shirt, collarless and partially unbuttoned, and Florence was newly aware not only of the delicate hollow of Nancy's throat but her sharp collarbones and strong neck, nearly as pale as the white shirt that surrounded it. 

Florence bit her lip. She couldn't move now, even though she had been standing in her own back garden for a good twenty minutes now, watching the girl she lived with washing a window of all things. And yet it was as though she'd never seen Nancy before, never truly looked at her. 

Nancy stretched to clean the panes above her head, her shirt pulling taut across her stomach and breasts, the V of the open collar distorting and flashing a bit more flesh than Nancy might have meant to, but then, she was cleaning the kitchen window, not wandering about in public. She wasn't putting herself on display, and yet Florence was staring, taking in her fill. Florence realized, suddenly, how unfair this was, how like the horrible gaping men in rough streets she was being, in thought if not in action.

It was at that moment that Nancy polished the pane in front of her face, and at last saw Florence looking back at her. The short haircut she'd got the day before was slicked down, though one errant lock fell over her forehead, all but pointing to those fine eyes of hers which widened to see Florence. And then, almost like that very first time Florence saw Nancy, her expression changed from surprise to something more lustful, as though she were not only welcoming Florence's admiration but returning it.

But for all that Nancy seemed to accept Florence's stare, Flo herself felt nothing but shame for her behavior. She cast her eyes downward and hurried inside, hoping that Nancy didn't know how long she'd been standing there, and all she could think to say was that Nancy had made the windows shine!

Nancy seemed confused, but then, Nancy had been thrown over and treated badly before, and Florence wasn't going to continue that. She didn't want that sort of love, all animal passion and taking what hadn't yet been offered freely. She wanted a love without shame, that could show its face in the light of the day, nothing furtive or forced about it.

She wanted a love like she'd hoped to have with Lilian, who still claimed her even from beyond the grave. Why, even if Nancy offered herself to Florence, openly, how could she give Nance less than her whole heart?

* * *

These days, the trousers were an everyday sight.

Florence had been unkind to Nancy when the speaking tour was originally suggested. Her mind connected the Nancy that gave other people's speeches about unions and the Woman Question with Nan King, and therefore with Kitty, and it made her jealous. But she'd been unfair; Nancy always gave credit to the speechwriters, and as Mrs. Macey had said, such talents should not go unused.

Of course, Nancy sending Kitty away helped.

So now she sat on the bed, leaning against the wall with Cyril in her arms, while Nan paced about the room in a frenzy trying to pack her trunk. Florence wanted to be soothing and calming, but she couldn't deny she was also enjoying watching Nancy bending over in a snug pair of trousers.

"Nance, you have plenty of time," Florence said. "You're not to leave until tomorrow morning."

"I know but—oh, _why_ did I get so many new frocks? And why won't they all fit in this dashed trunk?" she asked.

Florence shrugged. "You are a much neater packer than I," she said. "I'm sure that if you stop and take a breath, you'll be able to fit in all of your new dresses."

Nancy stopped mid-pace and her shoulders, which had been almost up to her ears with tension, relaxed. "What am I going to do without you?" she asked, shaking her head.

"More like what we are going to do without you," Florence replied.

"Oh you'll be fine," Nancy said, "now that Mrs. Costello is moving in. She'll keep your doorstep gleaming."

"That isn't what I mean and you know it," Florence replied, and turned to Cyril, feeling a little shy.

Nancy smiled a little, and returned to folding dresses, but she was calmer now. "Then I'll leave a few sentimental things behind for you to remember me by," she said. "My trousers, perhaps?"

"Why would you think that?" Florence asked, trying to look innocent and willing herself not to blush.

"I've seen the way you look at me!" Nancy said, laughing. "I'm not blind! And neither are you, apparently." She winked. "And do you know what I'd like in return?"

"No?" Florence said, because she hadn't, in all honesty, ever caught Nancy looking at her the way she knew she looked at Nancy.

Nancy knelt on the bed and pulled a curl from behind Flo's ear. "I would like a lock of your hair," she said. "I can put it in my locket and wear it next to my heart."

Florence looked into Nancy's eyes, expecting to find mockery there, but she was all sincerity. "Didn't you once say that lovers sentiment was nonsense?" she asked.

"That was before I loved you, Flo," she replied.

The front door opened and closed, and Ralph's voice called up, "Hullo, ladies!"

"What do you say," Nancy said, "after dinner we leave Cyril with Ralph and retire early, make some new memories for these trousers before I leave them with you?"

"I say you should hand me the scissors," Flo replied, smiling.


End file.
